


Track One: Home Movies

by Soraya (soraya2004), soraya2004



Series: Crossroads [3]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Character Death, Established Relationship, Future Fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-03-11
Updated: 2007-03-11
Packaged: 2017-10-14 19:35:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/152722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soraya2004/pseuds/Soraya, https://archiveofourown.org/users/soraya2004/pseuds/soraya2004
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Time doesn't always heal old wounds</p>
            </blockquote>





	Track One: Home Movies

"So, as I explained, the shield is not quite at full power." Miko fidgeted beside him. "But the over-ride programme is fully integrated, and power levels should be at maximum in a few weeks."

"You told me it would be ready today," John reminded her. "It was _supposed_ to be ready last week!" He'd bent close to the device, drawn in by the patterns of light and energy shifting across its surface, and for a moment, he'd lost himself in a world of possibility. Now, as he came down to earth, the sight of Miko's dismay did nothing to ease his frustration.

"Colonel," she began, bowing her head a little. "There have been many complications. I thought it best if we postpone—"

"You thought _what_ was best?" he cut in, narrowing his eyes.

Miko lowered her head even further. "Forgive me, there is no excuse for this failure."

She looked absolutely mortified. Though, beneath her shame, John sensed a very real fear of reprisal. He watched her struggle with it as he considered what to do with her. The reality for him was that lashing out would solve nothing. At this point, he wondered whether it would even make him feel better let alone the time it would take to get her back into a working frame of mind. So, after Miko started twisting her fingers at the hem of her shirt, John decided that was enough agonizing for one day.

"Okay, why don't we run through this one more time," he suggested, giving her one of his easy smiles, pretending not to notice how she seemed to shrink away from it. Miko looked as close to breaking as he'd ever seen, and that worried him in ways he didn't even want to contemplate.

Without her, he was pretty much out of options. He couldn't go to Rodney with this, or to any of their old friends, not if his plan had any chance at succeeding. Which meant he needed Miko driven and focused to help him pull this off. The trick, as always, was finding the right balance between fear and encouragement. Pushed too hard, Miko became a useless bundle of nerves; not enough, and there were subtle threads of mutiny weaving through her actions. Clearly, this was one of those days, which called for cajoling or other forms of gentler motivation. Even though what he really wanted to do was take her by the arms and shake some of Rodney's brilliance into her.

"Miko, listen to me," he said, trying to soften his tone a little. "You know Rodney has always had such faith in you." He told her this well aware of how much Rodney's opinion always mattered to her. And, moments later when she smiled shyly up at him, eyes shining with renewed confidence, he added, "Rodney's not wrong, is he?"

"Oh, no, Colonel," Miko replied at once. "McKay-san is never wrong!"

In the stretch of silence after that, Miko's smile faded into a grimace. Probably, John thought, because she'd strayed onto dangerous ground with that crack about Rodney's ego. He'd made it clear, time and time again, that no one messed with Rodney. And, from the nervous little glances she kept shooting at him, he could tell she was worried she'd crossed the line, and with good reason.

Had it been anyone else, he wouldn't have let that slide.

Since it was Miko, however, who'd never quite got over Rodney in the first place, all he did was chuckle for a moment. "See, I knew we could count on you," he whispered at the end of it, nudging her gently with his shoulder. She, more than anyone, understood the paradox that was Rodney McKay, with all those bizarrely endearing traits of his, and it felt good to share that with someone for once.

When Miko smiled a little easier at him, that brief moment of camaraderie carried him even further into her personal space. He draped one arm over her shoulder, hauling her into a hug, only to end it moments later after fumbling through a series of awkward back-pats.

Beside him, Miko stood unyielding as stone, showing him without words just how out of touch he'd become.

That wasn't much of surprise to him, since Rodney was really the _only_ person he'd tried to reach out to in over a year. Everyone else he preferred at arms length, far away and out of his way. Most of the time, that was enough for him. Except those brief seconds of contact sparked something in him that felt a lot like hope, and as he drew back, they left him with a sense of warmth that he ached to have in his life again.

"Now, back to work, Miko," he told her. "Let's figure this thing out before both of us are old and grey!" And his smile was as bright and as sharp as the hope flickering in his chest.

***

Hours later, John left Miko working alone in the lab. Together, they'd made some progress on the device, and although a part of him wanted to stay to keep pushing things along, he knew it was well past time for him to get back to Rodney. On the way there, he kept his stride long and his eyes fixed straight ahead. Not that anyone was crazy enough to disturb him. In fact, most people, who saw him coming, seemed to disappear all of a sudden into convenient passageways and any transporters nearby. It made him laugh watching them scurry away like that, knowing they'd all learnt from experience not to get in his way where Rodney was concerned.

One of these days, he promised himself, he was going to stop, just to fool around with them a little. Things like that were important, especially if they helped rebuild some of the relationships he'd let slide. He knew it wouldn't hurt to have a few more people in his corner. People he could count on to stand behind him and watch his back. People like Teyla or Ronon, even Elizabeth. And, of course, someone like Rodney, whom it always came back to in the end, and who, even then, was waiting for him impatiently no doubt.

That sense of urgency roared through him all of a sudden, blinding him to everything else. So he let himself run with it, trying to put all the distance he could between the failures of his past and where he needed to be right then. He ran through the tightness in his chest, vision blurring with sweat and the burn of fatigue, running as hard and as fast as he could until he found himself outside the quarters he shared with Rodney.

 _There_ things were no less clear, and for a long time he just stood in front of the door with his forehead pressed against it, taking one deep breath after another, trying to summon up the courage to go inside. No matter how hard he tried to do things differently, he'd never found a way to get it right with Rodney. It was always the same story—one which started with Rodney annoyed with him for being late. What made it even worse was that he knew all the words by heart now; he knew exactly how the argument they were going to have would play out. And, lately, as the doubts continued to seep through the cracks in their relationship, he'd started to ask himself why he kept putting himself through this.

There were days when the mere sight of Rodney made him crazy. Enough to want tear everything down around him, and enough to go back out and do his job with a ruthlessness that had _everyone_ giving him a wide berth afterwards.

Those were also the days when he thought quite seriously about moving out.

As an option, that was still open to him. Harsh though it was, in reality he knew he could simply stop showing up to face Rodney. Yet, despite it all, every night, no matter which direction he ran in or for how long, somehow he always seemed to end up right outside their quarters. And every time he opened the door, just as he did right then, what he found there made his heart skip a beat.

Rodney was already there, as he expected; he was sitting as his desk, hunched over his laptop, fingers tapping away.

Again, John wished he'd never agreed to let that thing in their room. It was hard enough distracting Rodney from work in the lab, he'd never wanted to bring that struggle into the bedroom. Still he'd given in to Rodney on that one, as he had so many times over the years. Which meant that whenever he came home now, it always took a while for Rodney to even notice he was there.

Today, there was enough time for him to walk to their bed, sit down and make himself comfortable before Rodney glanced over at him and muttered, "Oh, _there_ you are!"

"Hey," John said quietly.

Rodney gave a deep sigh, practically bristling with annoyance. "You're late," he complained. "And what the hell is that?"

"Nothing!" John tried plastering an innocent look on his face, not that he expected Rodney to buy that for one second.

As usual, Rodney didn't disappoint him. "That's not nothing!" And before John could say another word, Rodney leapt up and started pointing furiously at him. "Oh, no, no, no, tell me you're not filming us!"

"Rodney—"

"You actually want to film us, don't you?" Rodney kept talking right over him. "Are you insane? Look, we've talked about this already, and it's far too risky! Not that I'm against the idea, in principle, of us starring in our own filthy homemade porn. But these things always have a way of getting onto the Internet, and I don't—"

"Whoa, whoa, wait a minute!" John jumped in before Rodney could really hit his stride. "Why does it have to be porn?" he asked him. "How do you know _our_ film won't be tastefully art-house or something?"

After that, he enjoyed a full ten seconds of stunned silence before Rodney exploded with: "My God, were you even _there_ the last two hundred or so times we had sex? _Of course_ it'll be porn!"

It was always hard for him to keep it together when Rodney went off like that, especially when Rodney started huffing and waving his arms about. Still John forced himself to; he bit the inside of his cheek, he dug his nails into his thigh, anything to keep his composure from cracking.

Once he had himself under control again, he said, "Okay, so you've got me there," conceding that point as gracefully as he could under the circumstances. "But come on, Rodney, you know you want to," he persisted. "Trust me, a few years from now, you'll thank me for this!"

Rodney stared at him incredulously. "Sometimes, I don't even know why I married you!"

"You married me because you love me," John told him, watching the way Rodney just huffed at him again before opening his mouth and then closing it, apparently lost for words. "Also, because you knew it would make me happy," he went on. "Kind of like how doing _this_ would make me very happy!"

Rodney exhaled in one long and clearly exasperated sigh. "You know, it's a good thing you're pretty," he muttered at the end of it.

"Oh, yeah, and that too," John added.

He left Rodney with that thought, his lips curling a little now in spite of himself as he waited for Rodney to come to him. Because Rodney always came to him in the end; no matter how angry he started off, Rodney always took the steps needed to bring them closer together. This time, after Rodney walked over to their bed and sat down beside him, he took a deep breath, waiting to hear what Rodney would say next.

"I do love you," Rodney murmured a few moments later. "You know that, right?"

John nodded, finding it difficult to breathe all of a sudden.

"I know we don't say the words very often, but it's not like either one of us is counting or anything."

" _I_ do," he admitted, nearly choking on it. "I count every time you tell me!" And the sad reality for him was that those simple words were what brought him back to Rodney night after night. He tipped his head to one side, turning to stare into bright blue eyes that were watching him just as intently. Rodney looked very worried, enough to make him wonder what his own face was saying. So he tried, as he always did, to cover up somehow, whispering, "Hey, it's okay! We know exactly how we feel about each other, right? And anyway, you know how much I hate talking about this stuff."

Still, he knew Rodney had sensed some kind of desperation in him from the way Rodney touched him afterwards, laying one palm gently against his cheek, blue eyes shimmering as soft as he'd ever seen them.

"Well, maybe I should do something about that," Rodney suggested. "Maybe we should both tell each other more often."

"Yeah, maybe we should," John rasped out.

He took another deep breath then, trying to get himself back under control. And he needed that control more than ever when Rodney started nuzzling at him, pressing several kisses into his throat, up along his jaw.

The most difficult part was playing along because every time Rodney touched him, he tried to make himself feel something, which wasn't there any more. There was no heat between them and no spark. Nothing at all, not even when Rodney growled softly in his ear: "Now, turn that thing off, and I'll show you why what _we_ do in bed is definitely _not_ art-house!"

It didn't get any easier as the lights began to dim. So, before they went out entirely, John lay back and he closed his eyes, listening to the soft sounds Rodney made as Rodney settled over him for one more night.

***

Of all the recent changes in his life, the most unnerving were the missions off world without his team. He'd grown used to fighting with Teyla and Ronon at his side. Something about that had always felt right to him. Over the years, the bond they'd shared had evolved into what seemed like true family. And with Rodney off the mission rota, he'd relied on them to ground him after their team went from four to three.

When Teyla moved on and when Ronon went after her, they took with them the last of his ties to his old life. Now, whenever he stepped through the gate, there were new faces all around him. Strangers, whose names he never learned, because the new ones seldom lasted very long, and none of them ever came close to the team he used to have.

He paid for that distance with the trust of his men, and the price was measured out in the injuries he sustained.

This time, as he staggered through the gate dragging another faceless marine behind him, it was just his arm. Just a small flesh wound to go with the gash on his forehead, and certainly not enough to justify the sudden flurry of medical activity around him.

Still a doctor, who was nothing like Carson, kept hovering beside him. "You could let me take a look those," she offered, gesturing at his field dressings, though the expression on her face told an entirely different story. She wore the look of someone, who wanted him anywhere but there and preferably miles away. Which left him in no doubt as to why she kept hovering now. The threads of it ran through her voice for everyone to hear—all that fear competing with her guilt, with the oath she'd taken to do no harm.

John decided to save her the effort. "Don't waste your guilt on me, Doc," he told her. "Someone else deserves it more." He didn't need to see her flinch to know he'd landed a direct hit. The blood of that dead marine was on both their hands now.

On his way out of the infirmary, she managed to surprise him by not giving up so easily. "Colonel, wait, what about your head?" he heard her call after him.

When _that_ didn't slow him down, she added, "You really need to stay overnight for observation."

Which was possibly the _last_ thing that would have kept him there. These days, sleep was something he found only if he had Rodney beside him. So those words only reminded him that he needed to get back home, back to Rodney.

He picked up his pace, shoving past nurses, marines—anyone, who got in his way. And once he'd made it outside, he just kept on going; he kept running and running as fast as he could until finally he reached the quarters he shared with Rodney. _There_ he took several deep breaths, trying to prepare himself for how he _knew_ Rodney would react to the state he was in. And eventually when he opened the door and he stepped inside, he found Rodney sitting at his desk typing away, completely oblivious to the world around him.

The sight of him, in that so familiar pose, made it harder somehow to pretend that things were all right and as they should be. Rodney seemed even more untouchable than ever, absorbed as he was in his work. And for _him_ , Rodney's continuing silence seemed to embody the distance, which stretched across their relationship. Nothing ever changed between them. Outside, the world moved on, but here, in these quarters, they were stuck in routine. The loneliness hit him hardest on days like these, when a mission went badly wrong and when he needed someone, who would listen when he talked. Simple things he used to have with Rodney before he'd found himself in a relationship, which ran on autopilot.

They both deserved more; he knew that now. A part of him had known it for years, and he heard the hollow truth of it in Rodney's voice every time Rodney spoke to him, every time he had to force himself to walk over to their bed and wait for Rodney to notice he was there. Sure enough, after he'd sat down and he'd kicked his boots off into the corner, making enough noise to annoy even the most mild mannered of people, Rodney glanced over at him at last.

"Oh, there you are," he muttered.

"Hey," John replied.

"You're late," Rodney snapped at him.

To which John only sighed, not bothering to deny it this time.

"And what the hell is that?" Rodney went on in a more accusing tone.

"Oh, you mean this?" John shrugged, careful not to jar his injured arm too much. "It's nothing, Rodney," he explained tiredly. "Just a scratch, that's all."

After that, John lay back and he closed his eyes, letting the melodic sound of Rodney's voice flow right over of him.

***

He'd always known that scaling the final hurdle would be difficult. Rodney often told him that the barrier to true brilliance was in the mind, where people were so afraid of what they could achieve that instinctively they held themselves back. Yet, even with those warnings, it shocked him that he would choose to hesitate now that the solution to his problems sat, quite literally, in the palm of his hand.

"So it's completely charged?" he asked again, just to be sure.

"Yes," Miko replied patiently.

John gave her another hard look. "You'd better be right about this," he warned her. "I would rather wait a few more days, if that's what it takes." Because although he had no problem risking his own life, he wasn't going to risk Rodney's.

For once, Miko refused to be intimidated. "I checked it several times before I called you," she assured him. "Believe me, it _is_ ready! You can use it whenever you want."

Another look at the device seemed to confirm what she said. The power levels were stable, the over-ride programme was working seamlessly with the shield in place. All of which meant that there was nothing holding him back now and no more reason to wait.

Carefully, John curled his fingers around it, trying to stay calm. He hated how his heart was racing, how his hands wouldn't seem to stop trembling. That something so small could hold the key to his entire future . . ..

The idea had been simple enough; finding someone he could trust to build it in secret had been the hard part. But despite how far they'd come and all the things he'd had to do along the way to prepare for this moment, he'd never really expected Miko to succeed.

"I don't know what to say," John admitted in the end. "Miko—" he shook his head, shrugging helplessly at her, painfully aware that she was watching him struggle to find the words to thank her.

A part of him wanted to turn away from the understanding in her eyes. He wasn't used to letting anyone but Rodney see this side of him. Still he felt he owed her that much at the very least. She'd put up with a lot from him in the last two years—things no one else would have—and she'd stood by him when everyone else had moved on.

So, what he gave her, instead of words, was that one brief moment of vulnerability. And from the smile she gave him in return, he knew she understood.

***

Back in his quarters, many of the old doubts resurfaced.

He'd come to say goodbye, just for a moment, to see Rodney one last time before he left. But looking at Rodney made him drag his feet all of a sudden, and like all his darker thoughts, those doubts were as insidious as they were persistent. They kept him there far longer than he'd planned, using the ground they gained to tear a hole in his conviction wide enough for other emotions to creep through. Once free, the weight of them combined pressed him down onto the bed, where he sat for a long time with his head in his hands, trying to find a way back up.

Rodney, of course, made things worse with his carelessly chosen words.

"Are you insane?" Rodney yelled at him. "Look, we've talked about this already, and it's far too risky!"

So John started throwing back some careless words of his own. "Okay, fine," he admitted. "Yes, I'm about to try something crazy! Yes, there's a very good chance I won't come back from this!" He lifted his chin, determined to match Rodney scowl for scowl. "Now, normally, you'd be the one to talk me out of it—" and suddenly, John found he was struggling to keep his voice steady. "But you don't have the right to do that any more, Rodney," he said harshly. "Not after what _you_ did, not after all this time."

It was a bad way to end things; he knew that much. Anything that had _him_ close to breaking down and _Rodney_ looking unhappy wasn't the way he'd wanted to leave their final conversation. But, even the prospect of Rodney's disappointment couldn't stop the flow of bitter words held back for too long.

At the end of it all, Rodney gave him another withering look. "Sometimes, I don't even know why I married you!"

"You married me because you love me," John told him, fighting to get the words out. "And a couple of minutes from now, you'll tell me again; you always do."

He almost lost it after that. Rodney just seemed to stare through him, as though none of it was real. And John _knew_ he couldn't sit on their bed any more pretending that it was, the way he usually did. Their sheets had long since lost all trace of Rodney's warmth, and everything around him smelt sterile with absence.

In a break from their usual routine, he decided not to wait for Rodney to come to him. He stood up, leaving everything behind, going to meet Rodney halfway. And, when they drew near each other, he tried reaching out to Rodney one more time, even though he knew it was pointless. "God, I miss you," he whispered hoarsely. "So much, every _day_ , and it's not getting any easier, Rodney."

His hands trembled as they cupped Rodney's face, skimming over particles of light and shadow. Until Rodney shimmered out of view for a moment before slipping through his fingers and materializing on the other side, perfect and untouchable as always.

John watched him walk away then with eyes that felt like they were burning. And as the distance between them grew even wider, he whispered, "Hey, Rodney, how do you feel about coming on this trip with me?"

Rodney didn't answer him at all.

John punched his fist into a small piece of panelling in the wall behind him. From the console there, he took out one of the imaging crystals, placed it in his pocket, and he didn't wait for Rodney to blink and then fade away before he left their quarters for good.

***

Everything he was about to do hinged on perfect timing. So as he stood in front of the gate, staring into that shimmering pool of blue light, John ran through his plan one more time. In his life, he'd done a lot of crazy things, not the least of which was stepping through a Stargate in the first place. Somehow, though, he'd never imagined gate travel surfing on the back of an explosive shockwave.

It was easy enough to close himself off from the commotion surrounding him. It helped that he'd stopped listening to empty platitudes a long time ago, but there was no one left in the clamouring crowd, who could have changed his mind anyway. All the old voices of his conscience were gone. Most had passed away, while some had been replaced by the kind of brass, who ignored the means he chose if he gave them results in the end. The rest had simply given up on him.

He didn't like the man he'd let himself become without them. But time on Atlantis had changed too many things for him in ways he could never have imagined.

There was a time when Teyla and Ronon would have taken this trip with him, when Elizabeth would have watched them go from the gateroom balcony, trying not to look worried. Rodney would have been by his side, complaining about something, and Carson would have been waiting for them in the infirmary when they got back.

That life—the one he needed and he wanted—was locked somewhere in the past. And the key to finding it again always came back to one thing: Time.

For years, he'd heard so many different views about it. From his mother, who'd always called Time 'the great equalizer', believing it would right the wrongs, which justice was too blind to catch. Then, there were the shrinks and his friends and all the other people, who'd kept on saying: "In time, John, just give it time," when he'd lost it in those first few months after Rodney had died.

He knew now from bitter experience that they were all wrong. Time wasn't some benevolent ally; it was cold and harsh, and it marched on and on, trampling over the spirits of the people left behind.

Perhaps the worst part was that he knew he could live without Rodney. Every day, he got up and he lived in a city where most people were too scared to look him in the eye, and rightly so after some of the things he'd done. What scared him, though, was that he knew he was capable of so much more. And with no reason to pull back, he wasn't sure how far he would go in the end.

John took a deep breath, steadying his nerves. The waiting was getting him nowhere and it was finally time to change his life again. So he kicked two explosive charges into the wormhole, and then he ran in after them as fast as he could.

  
The End.

**Author's Note:**

> This story was inspired by a scene in the film "Timecop"


End file.
